The Players Championship Betting Guide

Presented by the media as the fifth major of the year, the Players Championship is the most illustrious event of the PGA Tour. It offers the richest purse in world golf and consequently attracts a field made up of the top 50 golfers on the Official World Golf Ranking.

The 2009 Players Championship winner Henrik Stenson claimed a very tidy sum of $1.71 million in prize money, but the added bonuses of winning the event include numerous points which count towards the year-end Official World Golf Ranking, and invitations and exemptions to the four Grand Slam events held each year.

Since the early 1980s the event has been played on one of the toughest golf courses on the planet – the Stadium Course at the Tournament Players Club at TPC Sawgrass – less formally known as TPC at Sawgrass. The club is situated in the famed Ponte Vedra Beach area in Florida, and is home to the PGA Tour HQ itself.

The only downside to the Players Championship is that it is not considered an official event on the European Tour, unlike the four Majors. This goes a long way to explaining why the event has been dominated by American golfers through the years. The European Tour has its own Players Championship, the Deutsche Bank Players Championship of Europe.

Since 2007 the event has been hosted in May, and The Players Championship is now part of very elite company. The first Major of the year is the Masters which is played at Augusta in April. TPC Sawgrass is then the venue for the Players Championship in May. This is closely followed by the US Open in June, the British Open in July and the US PGA Championship in August.

2009 Players Championship tickets are already available, and although it is probably the next best thing to the Majors, it does not demand the exorbitantly high prices of the Grand Slams of golf, especially the Masters.

2008 winner Sergio Garcia won the event in a sudden death playoff against Paul Goydos and in 2007 Phil Mickelson took the title, but there is one man who has made the Players Championship his own, and that is the celebrated Golden Bear, Jack Nicklaus. He is the only man to have claimed the championships on three occasions, and deserves to be one of the champions of the Players Championship. Australias Greg Norman holds the course record, and is also deserving of his title as champion.